Canon Powershot SX110IS Digital Camera

Got this camera to my wife for her art works. This camera has very nice features; high zoom, image stabilization, I was able to get very good images in almost darkness with max zoom and flash from 25'. The regular batteries are a real confidance for me, not to get stuck without batteries just when I need more power, I was going to by the Ricoh R8 which is a great product as well, but because it has a Li-ion custom battery, I have chosen to stick to normal, easy to get batteries, which can be also rechargable if I want. be sure to have on hand some extra batteries if you are going to places which might "make" you take many photos. Even with automatic settings, my wife gets beautiful photos, not to mention the manual settings which can give much more control on the result. I would like if the camera had rubber where the hand grips it like in the Ricoh R8, but this is a minor thing.
I would buy the same one for my self as well.

I have owned this camera for 1.5 months, and am very happy. I am frankly amazed at the flexibility and image quality from a camera at this price point that fits in your pocket. I find myself grabbing it whenever I go for a walk. At a store I compared it to the Panasonic TZ5 and a Nikon super zoom in the same price range. In shots without flash the Canon had far better image quality. (The TZ5 is nifty, but the image quality is mediocre: Its noise reduction really smears the colors.)

The 10X zoom lens is great if you don't mind a small amount of fringing on high contrast edges. The controls are logically laid out and easy to use, yet there is comprehensive manual controls if you need it. The image sharpening is a little overdone for my taste: I recommend shooting in P mode using a custom color profile with the sharpening turned down to the lowest level. The problem is that Canon chose to go light on the noise reduction (a decision with which I agree), but the default sharpening tends to turn low-level noise into "spiky" artifacts.

I wasn't expecting much from the video mode, but I must admit that it does well, even in low light conditions, and the sound is surprisingly good. It is a nuisance that you cannot adjust the optical zoom in video mode, since the digital zoom really degrades image quality.

It obviously still has a relatively small sensor with limited dynamic range, so don't expect silky smooth DSLR-like images at medium/low lighting, but at reasonable light levels the images are beautiful.

Highly recommended.

What I love about this camera is it's just plain easy to pick up and use, but it's got a load of advanced features that you can learn as you go.

Pick up the SX110 and you can feel how solid and stable it is in your hands. Okay, it's not the new thinner camera, but it still fits nicely into a shirt pocket.

Right off the bat, all the controls are up top and pretty clearly marked and understandable. Good for Canon. I looked at another brand and someone had to clue me in on what "BS" meant in terms of photography. It means Best Shot, by the way, but should I have to read the manual to find that out? The 'easy' settings should be intuitive and they are on the Canon.

The zoom is 10X optical, which means you're going to get clearer zooms than you would with a digitally produced effect. That ends the jagged edges.

The 3" LCD is clear as a bell. Colors are sharp and they stay that way in the pictures. In order to defeat the automatic white balance correction, you have scene selectors for sunset, snow scene, and night scene among others.

Anti-shake means the camera will correct for tremors in your hands. This is great if you're like me and take a lot of scenes from a passenger side window.

A huge plus is the camera operates on two AA size batteries. Trust me, this is a very good feature. We once got ready to go on a whale watching cruise only to discover our fancy camera's proprietary batteries were DOA. What to do? No camera store in the vicinity. We were lucky to find a disposable film camera to take semi-decent shots, but if our camera took AA's we could have bought replacement batteries right off the wharf.

The only drawback in this camera is the proximity of the flash to the lens. Even with red eye on, photos of my Siamese cat looked wrong. We finally took pictures in room light with 1/10th of a second exposure counting on the anti-shake and got EXCELLENT shots of the cats.

If you're looking for a portable camera that's easy to use and supply, this little Canon is a great camera to look at. For the money, the features and quality of pictures are excellent!

Rebecca Kyle, October 2008

I was in the market for a new camera and had always owned Pentax or Kodak. As i researched I noticed Canon's get great ratings so I considered a few Canon's in my quest for a new digital camera. I also checked out the Panasonic Lumix TZ5, very nice, however I liked the options and features on the Canon SX110 better. One really neat feature it has that I did not see on any of the cameras I looked at was the playback button. You can view the pictures you have taken without powering on the camera, WOW! Besides the awesome pictures this camera takes and how easy it is to use, you can also use the zoom feature while in video mode (most digicams do not do that). Great camera overall, however the only 2 faults I have found is the date can only be imprinted on the picture in postcard mode (think this is 2mp). This is alright for me b/c I use low res for mostly emails and 4x6 prints, however may not be good for people who like to take pics in higher resolutions. The other flaw is the SLOW flash recycle, you could miss out on some good pics bc of this. I also want to praise amazon.com for the great price which was $55 cheaper than the local retail stores in my area and I received my camera the day after I ordered it! Now that's super fast service!!

After many years of using only Olympus cameras, I bought the SX110 as a secondary compact camera and am truly amazed with its quality and feature set. The manual controls are great for creative photographers, the optical 10x zoom is excellent. Battery life is better than expected (about 3 days of shooting). IS works great as well.
All in all, a great buy (and even the price tag was a nice surprise).